Seekers of Smooth Things

The semester is in full swing. On Thursday evenings I attend a yoga class on campus. It is what I would call gentle yoga. Each posture is seemingly easy, I am never really straining one part of my body, but engaging many parts. We stretch towards the floor with our right hand, and the sky with our left; this tension is the place of growth. When I wake up Friday morning, I can feel the prior nights postures; that tension has sunk into my being and strengthened my muscles. It hurts for a while, but in the very best of ways. This is like seminary thus far. I would say it's gentle, no one thing seems to strenuous, but I may find that, by lunch, I am reaching both to the sky and earth; something has stretched my mind. Sometimes I can feel the ache of growth, but most of the time I take for granted the formation happening in that tension.

In my classes I have had to spend a considerable amount of time of deconstructing assumptions about myself, the church, our Christian story, (post modern, post colonial, post feminist, post ...) and identifying my lenses; how do I look at the Scriptures, others, and the world? One professor described his recent trip to Yellowstone and his heightened awareness, looking for bears changed his vision; "When you are looking for bears, everything you see looks like a bear." It is our challenge in seminary to identify our bears, which become our baggage and biases.

One shift that has happened is, first impressions of each other have fallen away. My shock at taking classes with lawyers, cops, military spouses, history professors and chemical salesmen, has faded and I am now able to see my classmates truly as peers, all gathered for the same purpose- to know, love and serve God. So what at first seemed like irreconcilable differences have not distanced us from each other, but only enriched our conversations and respect for one another. It's not all roses without any thorns; there have been some real tricky relationships, but it is all part of the formation.

In my favorite class, History and Hermeneutics, we read about a young scholar who was trusted with working on the Dead Sea Scrolls in their early stages of study, before they were translated and published; He recalled his experience, "I fell to my knees in lonely terror/exhilaration praying that I would unroll it, an not the other way around!" This is not unlike my feelings about seminary thus far. I get energized, feel alive as I am moving slowly towards the purpose God has called me to, through new knowledge and understandings. But then there is the flip side: I am being unrolled, taken apart and deconstructed. If I am attached to the Jessie I am today, then this will be a long hard process of resistance and resentment. I fear the being unrolled, but look around me and realize that if God has brought me this far, then he will, no doubt, lead me correctly to the right knowledge, formation and expression of my vocation.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls the Qumran community is conveys their belief that they alone, in their extreme observance of purity, were the only redeemable gathering of God's people. Their leader warned them against mixing with all the other kinds of Judaism going on in Jerusalem and cautioned them to not be like the "seekers of smooth things". These words have echoed in my mind since I read them. In this modern world of seeker friendly churches and absolute focus on the individual's experience, we often expect of the world (religions, retailers, educational institution, etc.) only smooth experiences of smooth things. I have thought of this when coming into times, in seminary, when I have desired something smoother, round, tangible and final, like holding a marble in my hands, but instead found a fluid undefinable shapeless and sticky something that I am going to have to write into a sermon someday.

I have been staying busy outside of classes; This is the cleanest my hands have been (from not gardening/farming) in a long time. It is hard for me to be indoors and not gardening and appreciating the wonders of nature like I used to do, so I started a composting program on campus. So far I have twelve new people composting. I collect all their compost for a large pile, and will then use it for the kitchen garden that I have been working on outside the cafeteria.

A few weeks ago I was nominated for the Episcopal Peace Fellowship Executive Council. They will be voting me on the board next month and I will participate in several meeting a year. I am excited for this opportunity to use my organizing muscles and apply what I am learning in classes, to the social justice issues that are close to my heart. I will be starting up the EPF chapter on campus after fall break, but it is hard to create one more meeting for people to attend in the week. Most people are busy as it is, so this will take some creativity.

Overall, life in Austin is good. I have never looked forward to a fall break as much as I am now, despite the monster size to do list I have of reading to catch-up on, get ahead of and papers to write.